Blood Moon Rising
by daisy-chains-and-bow-ties
Summary: Malsar was born in Morrowind at a time when blood was currency and dark was all an orphan child could hope to behold. She's been in Skyrim for seven years now and has slunk happily into legend, but when a feral force threatens to destroy her world, Malsar is dragged by her pointy ears into the claws of a blood-soaked war. Rated T for language and violence (and mild snogging).
1. Proclivity for Pyrotechnics

**I'll be skipping between multiple POVs in this story. If you really really despise a character (apart from the main one, obviously, because she's here to stay) then let me know and I'll review limiting their involvement. No promises, of course. This is set after the main questline.**

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><p>The gate guard leered at Lydia as she stood waiting for the city gates to creak open. His drowsy gaze traced the length of her lithe form and a smile slobbered across his slack face. Mercifully, he seemed to recall in that vague way idiots do the last time he'd made a pass at a woman trying to enter the city. It had taken ten minutes of pleading from Lydia before her Thane had grudgingly cast a healing spell on him, making sure to leave an ache that would plague him for at least a few days.<p>

Later, as they sat in a prison cell together, Lydia trying to negotiate their release with an Imperial Soldier lounging around in the grimy circle of light that seeped in through the roof, her mistress had laughed until the guard captain rammed the hilt of his sword against the bars, muting her to a satisfied smirk. "The High Council has agreed that you were provoked," he'd snarled, "But mark my words – if you touch one of my men ever again, I'll have you on the block." She'd only smiled, full of bravado that never seemed to flee her weathered cheeks, however many friends she managed to lose.

Lydia threw her shoulder against the gate as it began to edge open and slipped through, emerging onto cobbles warm from the sun. Solitude was one of the few places in Skyrim that experienced anything approaching pleasant weather, which was probably why her mistress had chosen to settle here, in the gloomy halls of Proudspire Manor.

Having grown up traipsing through the rugged plains of Whiterun Hold, the beauty of Solitude always struck Lydia when her mistress would drag her in groaning about arrows and new drawstrings. It was nothing compared to the vast chasms of Blackreach, nor the soaring heights of Daedric shrines, with their malevolent faces carved into the highest peaks of Skyrim. It couldn't compare to standing on the Throat of the World, or shivering in the halls of High Hrothgar, but it was still beautiful, still more than Lydia ever thought she'd see.

Vendors called out to her as she trudged along past Castle Dour, cursing the damp folds of her armour as the sun beat down on her, but she ignored them, keeping her blue-eyed, taunt Nord gaze fixed on the path ahead. Proudspire Manor sat wedged against the Bard's College, mouldering in the careless antics of her mistress. Lydia didn't doubt that she'd have some amount of trouble getting inside, for her mistress often holed herself up in the basement dabbling in strange alchemical experiments, and when she did so unwanted visitors would be met with a creative and deadly range of traps, wards and soul gem onslaughts. Still, Lydia wasn't housecarl to the greatest (and maddest) woman in Skyrim without reason, and so with grim determination she mounted the steps leading to a stately front door, and took a deep breath before tapping out three booming knocks.

What happened next was not surprising. Lydia launched herself backwards as a stream of fire engulfed the air several feet in front of the door, the result of a fire ward set onto the intricate iron decorations. Sighing, Lydia maneuvered to her feet under the not inconsiderable weight of her armour, and prepared for literal hell.

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><p>Malsar stood, poised in thoughtful contemplation, over a seething vat of some blackish liquid that glinted poisonously in the lamplight. Her slender fingers extended to her right, plucking from the shelf a bright flower, which she then proceeded to grind, along with several other alchemical ingredients, into an earthen mortar.<p>

In the light her red eyes glinted and the pointy angles of her face threw strange shadows onto the stone walls. She wore lightweight leather armour, a remnant from her days in the Thieves Guild of Riften, riddled with hidden pockets and pouches and straps where daggers might be hidden. They hung a little loosely on her frame, and the sunken hollows of her cheeks stood further testament to her malnourishment. It was a habit, she suspected somewhere in her voluminous mind, of the childhood she'd spent on the streets of some far-off elven city, before great whorls of ash reduced it to as much rubble and charred bone. She ate little and sparingly, hoarding food as though it weren't a commodity in her economic state.

Lydia was trampling around somewhere above, doing battle with her pet draugr. Malsar smirked at the thought of that hardy Nord being pursued through dusty rooms by some half-rotted corpse. It wouldn't be long before she arrived down, scowling, but not angry enough to do anything more than chastise Malsar. Lydia was fonder of her than any other being in the world, which struck Malsar as a little strange, seeing as she was frequently rude and always dismissive of her housecarl. It wasn't exactly deliberate; Malsar simply didn't like other people, regardless of how much they seemed to like her. Recalling that fiasco with Brynjolf, she shivered, returning her attention to her experiment and crushing the mixture with renewed vigour.

It was just forming into a nice, gloopy paste when Lydia came skulking along the corridor, boasting a small cut on her cheek. Malsar smirked, and was confused to see a flash of fondness in Lydia's eyes as opposed to the resentment generally directed at such demonstrations. She dropped the pestle as Lydia approached, turning to regard her in exasperation, "What do you want now?"

Her comment evoked a flash of hurt in Lydia's eyes, and, noting this; Malsar grudgingly morphed her pout into a grin and embraced her housecarl. "I missed you," she lied, pulling away. Lydia seemed mollified, but insisted on stripping out of her armour before uttering a word. Malsar wondered if she should offer to draw Lydia a bath, since she smelled like a mixture of dragon piss and burnt animal fat, but recalled Lydia's preference to conduct such business in her own time.

Lydia settled her ponging form on a barrel and began telling Malsar about all the letters of invitation she'd received from the College of Winterhold on account of her boundless magical talents. Malsar waved her hopeful tone away, "I despise those pompous intellectuals," making sure to lace the last word with sarcasm. Over several years, Malsar had mastered the tones of speaking used by most sentient beings on the planet, and integrated it into her own flat tones. Travellers she met had often been unnerved by her emotionless delivery, so it saved time to sound as normal people do.

Malsar met every single proposition of adventure from Lydia with staunch refusal, aching to return to her experiment. Eventually Lydia's stream of quests and locations of interest abated, and Malsar's gaze began to drift back toward her work, but Lydia cleared her throat pointedly and made a show of reluctantly taking a sheet of notepaper out of the lining of one boot. Wordlessly, she passed it to Malsar, who squinted at the curling scrawl.

She skimmed the messy scrawl, handwritten, the last of roughly two hundred such notices, judging by the angles, the cheapness of the ink, blah, blah.

Malsar laughed, tossing the letter into Lydia's hands, "What drivel," she scoffed, "Vampire hunters? Vampires are irritating, yes, but they're hardly 'a threat to the dawn'." Malsar turned back to her experiment, picking up the pestle with every appearance of becoming blind to the world at large once again.

"Funny," Lydia said, her voice barely audible, watching with great amusement as Malsar's ears perked, "I suppose I must have imagined the blood sucking fiends who charged into Whiterun last week. They killed one of the Grey-Manes, you know." Malsar didn't betray the slightest hint of dismay at this news as she turned to regard Lydia speculatively, despite the fact that she'd sprung a Grey-Mane child from a Thalmor prison not seven months ago.

Her elfish features betrayed interest, an expression she hadn't worn for many months. Slowly, she set down the pestle and rested against the rim of the alchemy table, "Riften?" she asked with every attempt at her customary nonchalance. Malsar felt her heart shift from its sluggish rhythm to a pounding that made her limbs tingle.

Lydia nodded, grinning.

Malsar moved her tongue over her teeth, "Good," she said finally, "I have to pick up a few things." She proffered her calloused hand to Lydia in an almost ritualistic fashion, accepting her housecarl's pinching grip with a smirk, eyes bright.

She let her head fall backwards, staring up at the scorch stains on the ceiling. Her breath rose in a fog as she spoke, "I _have _been searching for tests subjects for my…erm… breakthrough in pyrotechnics."

Lydia smiled, "Well, I'm sure they won't mind."

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><p><strong>Comments and <em>constructive<em> criticism are appreciated. **


	2. Horse or Carriage?

Lydia watched as her mistress tentatively reacquainted herself with the tools of their bloody trade. As the guards milling around the edges of Castle Dour courtyard looked on in awe, Malsar pirouetted, twirling riposte after masterful riposte, spinning and whirring, her glowing red blades shining like blood in the sunlight. She cast a deadly silhouette with her Nightingale hood obscuring her face, leaving only her red eyes visible. "The Dragonborn," onlookers muttered to one another as she worked, betraying not the slightest hint of strain as the minutes wore on.

Dovahkiin, indeed, Lydia recalled soberly. Malsar had never shared the details of her journey into Sovngarde, but Lydia had seen the red scar knotted across her back as she dressed just a few hours earlier. Neat stitching had reduced the gaping wound to a tidy red line, meandering like a river through its valley. It would have crippled any other warrior. She remembered Malsar muttering something about the heroes of Sovngarde bleeding away the damage to the sinews as they swept her back to reality.

Glancing up at the sun, Lydia realised they ought to be leaving soon. Malsar preferred to travel by night, claiming that the moon was a more faithful guide to her than the sun. She looked less starved in her current attire – Nightingale armour had a strange talent and shifted with her every movement, the living armour of Nocturnal's protectors.

Lydia approached her mistress slowly, and Malsar dropped her blades. She wasn't so much as breathing heavily, the epitome of finesse even after months of crouching in a damp dungeon. Elves were certainly durable creatures, however irascible their personalities might be. "It's time to go" Malsar stated before Lydia could speak.

"It is," she replied, watching as Malsar sheathed her blades, earning several cries of disappointment from the crowd.

They elbowed through the spectators and Malsar picked up a bushel of ebony arrows from the fletcher as they passed the shop. Her Nightingale bow was strapped to her back, the drawstring slathered with a fresh coating of Malsar's homemade solution.

"Would you prefer to take a cart or travel on horseback?" Malsar asked, a proposition that rendered Lydia somewhat taken aback. Her mistress rarely gave her a choice.

Thinking of Shadowmere's unblinking gaze, she hastily blurted the answer Malsar no doubt expected, "I can pay for the cart, if you'd like?" She could have sworn her mistress smiled at that, though her eyes were unreadable.

"'Lo there Malsar," a ruddy faced cart driver greeted them as they reached the turnoff for the stables, "Need a ride?"

Malsar flung her knapsack onto the cart by way of an answer. The cart-driver acted as though this were normal procedure, "Where d'you want to go?" Malsar merely shrugged, motioning to Lydia.

"Riften," Lydia supplied, earning a curious look from the cart-driver. Malsar leapt lightly onto the back of the wagon and sat, stretching her legs luxuriously. Lydia hopped awkwardly over her and sat stiffly, watching Malsar settle comfortably against the rough wood. Malsar possessed that feline ability to achieve comfort virtually anywhere.

As the cart began to move, rocking sickeningly from side to side, the driver glanced back at Lydia, whose eyes were fixed on her muddy boots, and launched into a lengthy, one-sided discussion about Riften's sordid history.

"Black-briar mead, best in all of Skyrim. They sell it up near Whiterun now. Place called Honeyside. I remember the bloke who used t'sell there – snarky bastard. He's in Dragonsreach now, 'parrently he 'ad a go at poisoning the Guard Captain. Bloody stupid, if y'ask me…"

This time, Lydia was sure Malsar was smirking.


	3. Go and Catch a Falling Star

Brynjolf slid down the roof on his backside, fingers scrabbling at the slick tiles for purchase, fighting a yell back down his throat. His arm wrenched painfully as he found a handhold between two loose tiles.

His fingers felt like they might snap, but a hasty oakflesh spell kept them sturdy as his body swung, raising an almighty racket, over the roof.

Blood dribbled between his lips. Somehow he'd managed to bite his tongue.

"Urgh," he spat, hauling himself up, trying to ignore the shouts below. It was a long way down.

It seemed as though attempting to sulk on top of Riften watchtower after filching from its occupants had been a piss poor idea. He had no easy way down, and no wish to massacre an entire tower full of guards when they'd only cleared out the corpses of the last crew a few weeks ago. It'd be written off as an Imperial attack, so the Guild wouldn't get any rub about it, but Brynjolf was fairly certain that he had ample blood staining his crafty fingers already.

There was no other option; he'd have to use the Dropbreaker. Malsar had given it to him the day she left, with that overprotective housecarl in tow. As they stood in the cistern, Vex slipping her second favourite dagger into the Guild leader's pocket, Delvin making terrible jokes, and Brynjolf standing in silent fury just beyond the circle of light falling from the well opening. He remembered how Karliah had crept up behind him, "Don't take it personally," she'd muttered.

His only reply had been to glare until she went away, flashing him an infuriating grin as she went to wish Malsar good luck in their native tongue.

He'd assumed that Malsar would elect to ignore him, but when the others drifted off, she'd raised her head and started at him with that unnerving red-eyed gaze. There was no emotion in her eyes; her defences were down, and the semblance of normalcy she generally maintained had slipped. The psychopath in her, the cold machine he'd always chosen to ignore, was what greeted him that day in absence of her usual jesting camaraderie.

He still wondered if the Malsar he knew was just an act, if he'd fallen in love with a ghost, a woman who couldn't exist anywhere but in his memories.

"Take this," she'd said, shoving a package into his arms without explanation. He had stared at it as she walked toward the crumbling ladder that led up to the tomb that held the secret entrance into the guild. "Wait!" he'd called. She'd spun, observing him with a hint of fury in her eyes. "What is this?" he'd asked, his voice fading to little more than a whisper under the fire of her anger.

Brynjolf pulled a mess of canvas and string from his pack, turning it over in his hands as he recalled her words, "Thieves seem overly fond of high places. I made this back in Morrowind, preparing for an assassination contract I'll never tell you about. If you find yourself trapped on a tower, or a roof, jump, and that" – she'd gestured to the package in his arms – "will break your fall."

The apparatus unravelled with several tugs, furling out before Brynjolf. The wind caught it and he was almost yanked from the roof. "Who's up there?" a soldier bellowed from below, and Brynjolf saw someone plant their boot on the battlements.

"I really hope this works," Brynjolf muttered, resisting the urge to screw his eyes shut as he stood.

And jumped.

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><p>"…I thought then that Mal was dead for sure. The dragon was teasing her, applying just the barest pressure to her midriff, but it had her caught well and good. I was so shocked to see her standing there in the maw of that great beast that I fumbled my arrow."<p>

"Don't downplay your role in that fiasco, Lydia," Malsar scolded, uttering her first words in two days, "You buried that arrow into its neck, but it was frenzied and barely felt it, no doubt imagining the comfy mountain Alduin would bestow upon it – before he ate the world, of course."

Lydia raised an eyebrow, "I did hit it, didn't I? Well then, Dovahkiin, you owe me a drink."

Malsar gave her the thumbs up, staring at a point past her shoulder, once again lost in her thoughts. The driver was hardly watching his horses anymore. His body was angled towards Lydia, wide-eyed, "How in Talos' name did she manage to get out of that one?"

Lydia turned her eyes back to him, "Well, you see Malsar's the best mage I've ever met, and before I could so much as attempt to nock another arrow, she dragon was howling in pain. She'd gone and used ice storm on herself, and this was a fire-breathing dragon you see, so ice and its teeth didn't go too well together. After that, she stabbed her sword into its eye and started walking again as though nothing untoward had happened. The dragon's soul trailed after her like smoke, whirling around her silhouette."

She finished her tale with a wide grin. Their driver shook his head slowly and turned back to the road. "Ah," he breathed, sounding deeply disappointed, "We're coming up to the watchtower now; shouldn't take us longer than fifteen minutes to reach Riften stables." Lydia turned to share this update with her Thane, whom she doubted had been listening, judging by the very complicated knot forming in her restless fingers. Malsar was uncomfortable beneath the open sky and her eyes searched the early dawn restlessly for outcrops to crouch behind in the event of an attack.

Before she could say a word however, her mistress stood and calmly hopped off the cart, striding off into the near-darkness without a word. "Mal, where are you going?" Lydia could tell by the angle of her head that Malsar was looking up at the sky, grinning. Lydia prodded the driver on the shoulder and he turned around, yelping as he noticed the sudden vacancy in his cart, "Keep driving, alright? I don't know what's going on, but you might want to urge those horses on unless you want to meet a real dragon."

Lydia didn't wait for him to reply before dropping down from the cart, her armour reverberating painfully as she hit the rough cobblestones of one of Riften's winding, overgrown roadways. Malsar hadn't moved an inch, but Lydia could hear her whispering something. Moving closer, she strained her ears, "… ten, nine, eight, seven, six…"

Her mouth was half open to ask Malsar what in the world she imagined she was doing when she heard a whooshing sound above her head, and a very familiar yell. Jolting her head up towards the stars, Lydia saw a guild armour-clad shape falling towards them. "You did not give him one of those things," she heard herself demand sternly as two booted feet hit her squarely in the jaw.

Her legs buckled and she flew backwards, reeling. Malsar's strange laugh echoed through the night as the yells of pursuing guards filled the air. "I am going to kill you," Lydia mumbled drunkenly as unconsciousness hit her like a charging horse.


	4. Oblivion Walking

Brynjolf groaned loudly, fighting his way out from beneath the folds of Malsar's (apparently prototype) invention. The elf in question stood over him, grinning in a familiar, self-satisfied way, "Excellent landing," she congratulated, oblivious to the murderous glare of her former guild-mate, "When I jumped off Solitude tower I broke both my legs, but I suppose height seems to be a bigger factor than I originally imagined – that and I probably should have heeded Lydia's warnings about the languid breeze that day."

Malsar proffered her arm and helped Brynjolf to his feet. The easy smile creasing her war-painted face was enough to make him catch his breath, it reminded him so much of the fidgety, outspoken Dunmer he'd met that day in Riften marketplace.

"You – ahem- sort of knocked Lydia out cold," she told him, looking down at the prone form of her housecarl.

"And there appears to be an entire tower full of guards thundering down the road right now," Brynjolf pointed meekly.

Instead of grimacing, as any sane elf would have, Malsar looked impressed, "What did you steal to put them in that sort of frenzy?"

"Details about a trade union."

"A what now?"

He grinned, "I'll explain it to your hierarchical head later, but for now you might want to help me lug your housecarl into cover before she gets trampled." Brynjolf slipped his hands under her arms, but Malsar waved him away and muttered a spell. Lydia's limp form rose off the ground, hovering several centimetres off the road.

Brynjolf had met a mage-thief once who could make daggers fly merely by force of will, but he'd said that anything heavier was almost impossible unless you'd meditated and trained with the likes of the Greybeards, and even then yanking a sword out of an opponent's hand was the best most could manage.

Yet Malsar's face didn't betray the slightest hint of strain as she guided Lydia's heavy armour-clad form into the bushes, even as the sounds of footfalls became audible. "Stop staring, Brynjolf," she scolded, "Unless you want to be target practice for those guards." His boots moved soundlessly as he slipped into the foliage, watching Malsar calmly tuck Lydia away, hiding the glint of her armour with the remains of the Dropbreaker.

In the moonlight her Nightingale armour shone like a black flame, the bow strapped across her back shimmered and the two Daedric swords – one on each hip – glowed red as the coals of a dying fire. With her dark, elven skin and shining red eyes, she looked like a creature summoned straight from Oblivion. He realised then that she wasn't hiding from the guards; she was sparing them.

And, just like that, she became a stranger once again, cold and vicious and unfeeling.

"Lydia's going to kill me," Brynjolf said glumly as Malsar joined him, pulling her cowl up over her mouth, reducing her already barren expressive playing field to the point that he couldn't read a single emotion from her. Her eyes met his impassively, and he felt the tug on his heart that meant she could read the longing from his eyes.

Shor's bones, lass, will I ever get past you?

She looked away, back at the road, "Perhaps," she said evenly, "But her bark is generally fiercer than her bite."

Brynjolf lowered his stiff form onto the mossy ground, taking in a multitude of small hurts that would no doubt have Tonilia snarling about wasted potions. "Aye, that it is, lass." The guards had finally reached them and were combing the now-vacant roadway.

He looked over at Lydia, and his stomach clenched in horror as she began to stir. It took a moment for Malsar to catch sight of his wild gestures. She hissed a curse and watched as Lydia began to groan, a spell forming in her outstretched hands. But before she could cast it a cry went up, and one of the guards made straight for their hiding place.

"Sithis beguile these Nord ears," Malsar muttered. Brynjolf saw her shoulders slump as she set one hand on the hilt of a Daedric blade, which glowed thirstily at her touch. Then she stood, brushing twigs from the folds of her flowing armour. The guard froze and cast around for his comrades, and Brynjolf imagined that underneath his stylised helmet he'd gone pale as milk, because the rest of the force had moved along the road with their backs to him.

Malsar's smile seemed to ring like a drawn blade through the darkness, and slowly she lifted her hand from her sword and brought it up to her lips, "Shh…"

The guard's knees shook and he nodded profusely, stepping away from her, almost stumbling over a jutting root. Then he turned and walked away without looking back. Malsar chuckled, "Piss on your sycophantic persuasion, Bryn." She turned, pulling down her cowl to gloat, but she barely managed to spit out a single syllable before a huge shape hit her from behind, driving her through a bush. Brynjolf scrambled to his feet as the shape loomed over Malsar, whose eyes were wide with shock, and a huge fist bore down on her.

The Dragonborn's head snapped to the side and her flailing limbs slumped like a puppet with its strings suddenly and viciously cut. Lydia raised her head and breathed deeply of the night air, "That felt soooo good," she exulted, grinning as Brynjolf moved to tackle her, "I wouldn't, little thief."

"I really wouldn't."

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><p><strong>Trust me, Malsar more than deserved that.<strong>

**Thank you for reading. Reviews are appreciated, if you are so inclined. Otherwise, keep lurking.**


	5. Unpleasantries

Lydia carried Malsar in her arms like a child, and as Brynjolf strode beside her, lighting their way with a spell in his upraised palm, he couldn't help but think that in that moment, limp and with her Nightingale hood knocked askew leaving her tiny features in a mask of peaceful sleep, she did look rather childlike. Her sooty black hair stood up like an owl's ruffled feathers, and her weapons were draped on Lydia's back.

The housecarl had handled the weapons with surprising care before hoisting Malsar gently into her arms despite Brynjolf's protests that he was more than capable of carrying a 100 pound elfling, despite the fact that she'd just clocked the elf in question into submission.

Catching Brynjolf staring at her in bewilderment, Lydia sighed, "First of all, she deserved that on principle. We both know how clever Malsar is. She knew precisely where your trajectory would take you and she didn't say a word. Secondly, I'm almost entirely sure that she hasn't slept in two weeks, or eaten more than what I've forced her to swallow in the same amount of time."

Her face betrayed a flicker of remorse as she looked down at Malsar, "This isn't the first time I've had to force her to take care of herself."

"Is she really that bad?" Brynjolf asked, trying to recall a time when Malsar had wandered into dire straits during their time as guild mates, "I've never…"

Lydia snorted, "Aye, she keeps her guard up around some people, especially when she's trying desperately to act normal."

Seeing her in such a vulnerable position had almost made him forget the things she'd done tonight, like scaring that guard away with a glare and demonstrating almost impossible levels of skill with Alteration. She wasn't a child, "So she's really… like that, all the time?"

Lydia recognised what he was really asking; the question that had plagued him for months after she left and which had recently slunk away to a small itch that only bothered him occasionally. Seeing her had brought it to the forefront of his mind

Who did I fall in love with? Was it Malsar or simply a character whose face she wore for a little while?

Lydia flashed him a pitying glance, "I've known her for five years, and I honestly don't know Brynjolf. Maybe you should ask her." Yet even as she said it Lydia knew that doing so would be a piss poor idea. Malsar may or may not be a psychopath, but she was certainly incapable of making her feelings known.

"Maybe," Brynjolf echoed, returning his now hardened gaze to the road ahead.

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><p><em>"Dragonborn," the whisper trailed behind her as Malsar paced through empty corridors, tracing her fingers along the walls. Several times she doubled back, attempting to retrace her steps, but when she tried to recall the details of left turns and right turns she couldn't remember. Her. Malsar, Thieves Guild Leader, Assassin Most Foul, Scorner of Mages and Protector of the Realm. She couldn't remember a handful of turns.<em>

_It was practically blasphemous._

_In her stubbornness she scratched at corner, only to find the marks faded when she tried to return. She traced symbols in the dust, but wind would gust along the halls of her mind, wiping them clear just as soon as she turned away._

_All the while that whisper followed her, teasing, yet somehow urgent, "Is this the best you can do, Dovahkiin? I thought dragons knew their way around the whole of Tamriel. Where are your blood memories now, zivzah dovah?"_

_False dragon._

_"You can't even find your way around your estranged mind, kosmeyiik. You are not worthy to hunt vampires, noblest and bravest of all creatures."_

_Pretender, he called her. He could see the fallacy in her, just as Brynjolf had, just as they all would, sooner or later._

_She felt herself moving faster, her heart beating erratically as she flung herself around corners._

_"You cannot run from vahzen, Dovahkiin," the voice taunted, prowling on her heels like a sabre cat, "But try it while you can."_

_A deep, throaty chuckle followed her, "Run, little elf, run."_

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><p>Malsar lurched into consciousness, sweating through her armour, almost slamming into someone's nose as they bent over her, concerned. Her vision swam for a moment, but when it cleared she could make out a familiar, rugged face. "Don't go breaking this nose again, Mal. I don't think it could take it," Delvin grumbled, dabbing at her forehead with a cloth.<p>

She slumped back against the familiar, spring infested shape of her bed in the Cistern. Vex stood at Delvin's shoulder, watching Malsar with her friendliest glare, "Your idiot housecarl decided to put your lights out, apparently," she drawled.

"Hey, I can hear you," someone called out from across the room. Lydia, Malsar recalled, amused. There were a very few people in the world who could take her by surprise, and they had to be either very good, or completely harmless. Two days ago, Lydia had been wedged safely in the latter party, but Malsar wasn't so sure anymore.

"Can I sit up?" she asked, sitting up anyways. Her head spun and she felt her stomach churn threateningly, but after a moment she felt the world settle back to where it belonged.

"If you want to," Vex replied wryly, fiddling with the dagger at her belt, "And you should try walking soon too, just to make sure your friend here didn't break anything important in that empty head."

Malsar snorted, the universal indicator of nonchalant disdain, "It'll take more than that." She cast her gaze around surreptitiously, searching for her weapons. Vex smirked without looking up from her deft knife-play and pointed one long finger to where Malsar's weapons were stacked.

"If you're thinking of taking down that idiot before she becomes a problem," Vex muttered, barely moving her lips, "I'm in." Her fingers tightened around the dagger and its edge glinted in the candlelight.

Malsar threw her legs over the side of the bed, trying to ascertain if they were inclined to support her weight, "I appreciate the offer," she said, but we both know I owe more to her than I do even to Nocturnal. The words hung unspoken, as they always would.

Lifting one hand to the familiar slope of the Cistern walls, Malsar stood and swayed for a moment before landing steadily on the balls of her feet. Her hips felt curiously light without her Daedric swords strapped tight against her; the unfamiliar equilibrium made her shudder. An experimental spark trailed languidly around her finger, reminding her that, even without her usual arsenal, she was far from helpless.

All the same she had to force her footsteps into a steady rhythm as she made for her weapons. The Daedric blades in all their strange mindfulness, shone bright red when they felt her presence, as though relieved to feel her heartbeat as she wrapped her fingers around their elegantly crafted hilts. Malsar was technically rich, but for all her wealth she felt poor without these blades, painstakingly crafted by her own hands. She strapped them to her hips and settled into the familiar weight, plucking her Nightingale bow from where it lay.

Someone, probably Niruin, had replaced the drawstring and made some alterations to her homemade solution. Appreciation swelled in her as she noted the shift of a subtle, living poison beneath her fingertips, eager to climb onto her arrows and spread through the nerves of her enemies. She allowed her appreciation to flow into her eyes as Niruin caught her gaze from across the room. He shot her a grin.

She inclined her head, an obscure Bosmer formality that caught him by surprise. He practically blushed, signing his thanks in stunted Daedric. Malsar was surprised to see the symbols after spending so long in the company of Nords, whose only utilisation of hands in speech was informal gestures.

Daedric could not be spoken by any but the most favoured among the Princes, and even then certain words were as likely to kill as poison on a blade. Instead, most Dunmer (those who still practiced around a summoning circle) used hand signs. The language was technically dead, so few were its practitioners, but Bosmer were strange creatures, taking an uncommon interest in the customs of other races.

Malsar shot him an appraising smile and turned back to Vex, who was staring at her in bewilderment, "What in Coldharbour was that supposed to be?"

Malsar frowned, "What?"

"I mean, I know what they say about dark elves, but here, now? It just seems like a little bit… much," Vex shrugged her wiry shoulders in discomfort.

"Vex, I honestly have no idea-"

"Not that I care, but I should box your pointy ears for that. Brynjolf's been moping for months, and now you're gonna entangle yet another guild mate?"

"Whoa, whoa," Malsar held up my hands, showing her my scars as a sign of peace, "Firstly, what they say about dark elves is bullshit. We like… yoga as much as the next sentient species, but we're not, that wasn't…" She shot a glare at Niruin, who was doubled over with laughter, unwilling to raise a yellow finger to help her.

Vex fixed her with a hard stare, raking her observant eyes over every sign of discomfort in her guild mate's body language before slumping, placated, onto the end of the mouldy mattress. Malsar wrinkled her nose, "I wish Brynjolf would invest in better accoutrements. We're professionals now."

As though in response to my claim, a raucous laugh rose from the other end of the room. Vex coughed her odd laugh, "You should tell him that," she barked, "But first," her nimble fingers reached out to touch trace the puckered skin around Malsar's eye, "You should fix that face of yours. It's ugly enough as it is."

Malsar flashed a cold smile in her direction, "It's on my schedule, but first," she stretched her wiry arms luxuriously above her head, "Want to help me dump Lydia in the cistern?"


	6. Noiseless, patient spider

Riften's disreputable market languished beneath a decidedly languid midday sun, its vendors watching with barely concealed apprehension as Malsar stalked through it, Daedric swords bobbling contentedly at her hips. Vex chortled at her side, "Oh, and remember that time you were fighting with Bryn and you marched right down into Riften jail and told to guard captain that he could either give you the keys or lose his fingers?"

Malsar had been rendered stony and unsmiling by the sunlight, but she managed to crack something vaguely resembling a grin at her guild mate's mirth, "I think there were a few more expletives in there when I said it," she muttered, tossing Vex into another round of dark chuckling.

"Then you busted Brand-Shei right out, bounty and all," Vex shook her head, almost in admiration, "Bryn was livid."

"Aye. He threw me in the lake!" But he hadn't tried to set Brand-Shei up again, even when Maven marched in with red ears and a glare demanding that Mercer keep his minions under control, even if they were shagging their way to the top. Even Maven only dared sent one hired knife after her before giving up.

That said; the bits of him she'd left scattered in the trees around the city had probably served as deterrent enough.

Matching Vex's swagger, Malsar cast her gaze over the vendors, who quickly looked away. There had been a time when those same people had raised an eyebrow at her and enquired as to the reason her oafish frame deemed itself important enough to be in their light, but those days were many garbed threats behind her. The Guild Master of a flailing, impoverished guild had still been reason enough to quail, but the Mistress of a thriving guild with its fingers in every conceivable variety of pie demanded much more than that.

"How's business?" Malsar slumped against the wall, throwing her head back to soak up Skyrim's meagre sunlight.

Vex shrugged her shoulders, "I'm amazed there's still gold left to steal in this abominable country after the boon we've had since you sent Mercer to the gods," the grin she flashed at Malsar was all teeth, "but I'm more interested in you, you massive asshole. Where've you been all these months?"

The question caught Malsar off guard. Vex was such a private person she didn't usually ask question like that. Her ears twitched uncomfortably as she waved her hands carelessly, "Causing trouble, picking fights, brewing poison – the usual." The blonde lounging at her side raised an eyebrow.

Never one to hide her feelings, she let out a sigh, "Dammit, Mal, you as good as just told me to go dump myself in the lake, but whatever you've been up to, I just want you to know that you owe me more than one drink for all the moping I've had to put up with. Delvin misses you making his job easy, Vekel misses your gold, Ton misses the crap you'd haul back for her, and Bryn, well, I'm sure there're parts of you he missed too, but mostly we've all just missed you, you know?" There was an edge of genuine emotion in her voice.

She opened her mouth, hoping the right thing would spout from her lips, but she was cut short as Lydia stomped across the bridge across from the Jarl's ivy-ridden holding, hair still streaked with dirt from her swim in the cistern. Vex didn't even turn her head, she just vaulted over the wall and set off to bully someone while Lydia fixed Malsar with a murderous stare and Grelka muffled a laugh, busying herself with mending some thoroughly moth-bitten slab of leather armour.

"Let's," Lydia cut across her as she started to quip, "agree not to talk about any of it again." She said it with a snarl as she wrung out her hair again, grimacing at the sour smell that rose off of her skin. Malsar, taking uncharacteristic pity on her companion, shut her mouth and fiddled with the buckles on her gauntlets. Vex, slouched across the square, narrowed her eyes, musing silently to herself at the almost regretful pall streaking across Malsar's bruised-blue features.

Her head twitched in a gesture of compliance and Lydia visibly deflated, scrubbing a little less harshly at the tarnished steel of her much-battered armour. When she spoke she tripped over the words, ungainly at the sight of what might well be feigned humility, despite Malsar's disturbingly accurate rendition of what normal people might betray in the smallest tilt of a head, "I, uh, need to talk to –what's he called now? – the, uh, the blacksmith."

Lydia trudged, flustered and jangling, through the languid heat, not daring to look back at Malsar, whose fingers still flipped and fiddled with the manifold buckles that had protected her arms from the sawing edges of Ancient Nord Greatswords. Vex, silent as the shadows she loved so dearly, sidled up beside Malsar, "Nicely played," she congratulated, jerking her head at Lydia's retreating back.

Malsar's eyes flashed upward once, briefly, examining Vex's expression in one breath, before dropping, resolutely, once more, "I don't know what you're talking about," she said coolly, resuming her slow patrol of the city she had single-handedly claimed. Vex had seen Malsar dodge daggers, crawl through windows and drop heedlessly into the knee-high rotting stench of sewers, thin and true as an assassin's arrow, but in the glare of the midday sun, Kinareth's breath ruffling her roughly shorn hair, she seemed diminished. Bored, Vex decided, watching Malsar cast her gaze past the walls of Riften, toward the ash-filled home that dark elves could locate with mystifying accuracy, wherever they were.

Because for all that Malsar was quick and loyal and eccentric, she was also perpetually dissatisfied with what the world threw at her. Vex had once dragged Malsar from the ashes of a fire she'd put out by falling into it, her fire resistance protecting her flesh from the sizzling heat, and though her breath had come hard and loud in the empty parlour of the house Vex had slithered into in frantic pursuit of her abruptly absent Guildmate, her eyes had betrayed something akin to lethargy. Later, as they basked in the glow of a hastily constructed campfire, Malsar had stared into it and seemed more incorporeal than her spells had ever made her.

"You're leaving her, aren't you?" Vex said as they entered the relative hush of the graveyard, turning her head sideways to gauge Malsar's reaction.

She didn't give much away, Vex had to admit, but her ears, which Vex knew from… experience to be the most sensitive part of an elf's body, twitched a little. Just the smallest fraction, but it was enough.

"She won't forgive you, Mal," her apathetic tones quavered painfully in the grating quiet, "Just like Bryn never will. She'll hold it in her heart and break everything you ever gave to her, and I'm not exaggerating because I know what it feels like to be tossed out in the dark."

Malsar drew her fingers over the outline of the Thieves Guild crest, embedded in the sarcophagus, and though her head was bowed Vex heard a tremble in her tone when she said, "I know," and it was probably draugr-babble coming from Malsar, but at least she understood she ought to be upset. She ought to be distraught, but upset would suffice.

Even if it wasn't real. Even if nothing about her ever had been.

* * *

><p>She left as Sithis drew the heel of his boot over the earth, dragging shadows, faithful servants in the Dread Lord's wake. Just like her, stalking between the headstones with Daedric blades smothered in black cloth but whispering still, whispering to her the word for blood in every language she knew, and some she wished she didn't.<p>

Riften creaked uncomfortably in the muggy darkness, and rats skittered between her boots as though her passing and all it represented was little more than an evening's entertainment. Which, she acknowledged wryly, head shifting silently, probably made them more god-like than any crazed sorcerer she'd stumbled across.

Malsar reckoned her tread felt a little unsteady, but it had taken a long night of competitive drinking to make Lydia sink into some grubby mattress with the kind of limpness that assured Malsar she wouldn't wake up before the sun. It stank down there, in that gloopy warmth, but Lydia had snored wholeheartedly as Malsar passed over her, a shadow thrown by the moonlight cracking through the shafts of wood above the cistern opening. It had taken her the whole sticky climb up that half-rotted ladder to convince herself that she was imagining that twinge in her stomach.

The guards lounging by the main gate straightened groggily as she approached, neither of them brash enough to spurn the respectful nod she had earned through blood and open windows. They watched her lithe form as she passed between them, pushing at the gates with her shoulder until they swung open, gently, as though disrupted by a sudden gust of wind. She slipped between them like a cat, with boneless grace and a decisive twitch of her pointy ears.

Despite her formidable silhouette against the faint moonlight, a quick spell ensured that the horses shifting inside their stalls watched with quiet eyes as she slipped down the path from town. Ignoring the bright-eyed stares of Khajiit merchants, she slithered past and traipsed into the trees with haughty carelessness, hands swaying by her sides as though she couldn't imagine having to reach for a blade.

Lydia's absence made her shoulders cold. But she was used to that. A decade on the streets meant that you never stop looking over your shoulder; you never stop knife-checks and seeking exits, regardless of how many friends you might have tricked into your confidence. Because every ragged corner of the earth was just another mangy street waiting to choke you in its filth.

The mountains unfolded before her and she dug a hand into one of the many pockets hidden in her armour, digging out a piece of smudged parchment.

Vampires. Colder than her and older than her and less merciful. But she was used to that.


End file.
